Advent of Glory
by Zapenstap
Summary: Princess Tutu The story is finished, the ending complete, and everyone has agreed that it is best to return to being their trueselves. One morning, Ahiru awakes as a girl...as something somewhere begins to stir.


Hmm…. What can I say to preface this fic? If you haven't seen all of Princess Tutu and don't want to be spoiled, then don't read this story. If you _have_ seen all of Princess Tutu or have already spoiled yourself than you already know that there is some built-in conflict with the Ahiru x Fakir pairing. In the series, Ahiru (or Duck if you prefer—I'm going to call her Ahiru) is just starting to grow up for one thing, and I took that into consideration in writing this story but, hey, we all have to start somewhere! As for that _other_ problem... about our protagonist being an actual duck…well, you'll have to read ahead to find out how I'm going to deal with that. I've crafted this first chapter with the intent of it meshing in with a larger story I've been developing, but I'll see how people respond before I decide how to take it from here. Please enjoy and thank you for reading!

Advent of Glory

Chapter 1: The Garden Wall

By Zapenstap

It was a secret place, a hidden place shrouded in morning fog and concealed behind birch trees. Somewhere in the distance there was music playing, and the ripples on the surface of the lake from where the bugs alighted to rest their wings seemed to harmonize in time with the cadence of sounds. All was quiet except for the music, as if the whole world were holding its breath.

Along the water's edge, reeds rose stick straight out of the water, obscuring the wings of a small bird nestled near the shore, a little duck whose chick feathers were just starting to pale to whiteness, the soft fuzzy down being replaced rapidly by feathers stiff for flying. The duck blinked her eyes in the gray light of the dawn and listened for signs of anyone approaching, hoping to hear the familiar sound of boots crunching on leaves, a precursor to a voice that would soon call out softly "hey, hey," the only voice that would speak to her.

"…quack."

The little duck stared into the reeds by the shore, peering through the fog, straining her ears, her small heart quivering with pleasant expectancy. She heard no further sound, but she felt the air stir, and with it, reality trembled—it was as if the lake and everything in and around it had been struck like a bell. The ripples on the surface of the lake seemed to rise into the air and pass across her eyes, obscuring her vision and blurring her sight. The reeds that concealed her form seemed to shrink, sinking deeper into the muddy bottom of the lake. Abruptly she felt the chill of the water slide across her own skin. Was she sinking as well? When she looked out straight ahead, she could see further out across the lake, her vision expanding as if she were rising higher. Feeling stretched in two directions, she panicked, wings flapping, quacking noisily.

And in a moment, everything, including her vain struggle, stopped.

Her feet hit the mud and she lifted her head, waist deep in reeds and blinking blue eyes in the fog. From another place, as if the thought were harking back to her from some other time or place, came a bewildering realization:

_I'm a girl!_

* * *

Was she dreaming?

* * *

"Ahiru!"

_Pike?_

"Ahiru! Hurry, wake up!"

_Lilie?_

Ahiru opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling above her bunk bed, the images of the lake in the morning fading and slipping away even as she tried to piece them together. Ahiru. Ahiru. She squinted at the light streaming through her window and then turned her face into her pillow. Ahiru was a duck so she was a duck. No, wait, she was in a bed, so she was definitely a girl. Or no, she was a ballet dancer. Princess Tutu? Or…was she a dancing duck…? Yawning, she blinked her eyes to clear her head. Mornings were confusing. Her whole head felt stuffed with cotton.

"Ahiru! Are you in there? If you don't wake up, you are going to be late for class!"

The meaning made its way through the muddled haze in her head to jumpstart her heart. Late? Class_? What time is it?_ With a half-strangled yelp, Ahiru threw her blankets aside and leaped out of bed. Having momentarily forgotten how high her bed was from the ground, her quick reflexes resulted in an ungraceful crash to the floor below.

"Ahiru, are you okay?" Pike's concerned voice sounded through the door.

Hitting the ground jarred Ahiru's sense of reality and clarity came over her like a needle stuck into her brain. She looked up at the ceiling again, and then turned her head to look down her arm at her hand. She wiggled her fingers, watching the slender shape of her hand respond as she clenched and unclenched her fist. Her hair was in a messy pile behind her head. She could feel her toes growing cold in the morning air. She really was a girl.

"She's hurt!" Lillie exclaimed from the other side of the door.

"I'm okay!" Ahiru called back. Rubbing at her bruises, she got to her feet and dashed around the room gathering her things. All of her stuff was still here, as if she had always been here. Her room looked the same, undisturbed and untouched since Pike and Lilie had last banged on her door. But that had been awhile ago, during a time when story and reality were mixed in this town, making such things possible. And now…? It didn't feel like a story now, and she was sure time had passed, but she wasn't sure how much, or what had happened during that time, other than that she had been a duck.

_I _am_ a duck. That is my true self._

Wasn't it? As she picked her ballet shoes up off the floor, she straightened slowly in a rare moment of self-reflective concern. It was coupled by a nervousness that she couldn't begin to explain. How did she get here?

* * *

The dance instructor—a man in his early thirties that Ahiru was certain she had never laid eyes on before—welcomed her as a new student just arrived. Pike and Lilie immediately defended her prolonged absence, explaining to the instructor that Ahiru had been missing in action for awhile, but that she had always been enrolled in the dance academy. The instructor asked where she had been and why she hadn't been attending class (even to watch if she was injured), but Ahiru didn't know how to respond. Instead she just laughed in bewilderment until the instructor became cross and ordered her to the barre. 

Dancing was a disaster like always, made worse as usual by her lack of concentration. She still felt like a duck. Every time she looked in the mirror she compared herself to the other girls and couldn't help feeling like there was something wrong with the shape of her body that just made it impossible for her to do the steps right. It was not so much a lack of turn-out as an inherent clumsiness or physical disproportion. And it was a different kind of disproportion now than she remembered too. She seemed a little taller, and a little more filled out, but only a little bit, and it wasn't helping her with the movements at all!

"Hey, you've been in a daze all day," Pike said later when they were walking across the school grounds during lunch. "Don't be depressed. Class wasn't so bad, and we're glad you're back. We wondered where you disappeared to. I thought maybe you had given up on ballet. Lilie thought you ran off after Mytho."

Ahiru blinked, looking up at her two friends, wondering how much time had passed since she had last walked between them around campus and knew she couldn't ask. She felt different. Everything seemed a little strange. Her memory of the time she was absent was a blank, and before that it was patchy. She tried to remember.

"Mytho married Rue," Ahiru said slowly.

"Really?" Lilie exclaimed. "Really? Really? You knew? Were you heartbroken? Did you run away because of heartache?"

"Um, no…" she said. "I…" She stared at Lilie uncertainly. The last time she had seen her bubbly blonde friend, she had been under the curse of the monster raven. Pike too. The whole town. And then Prince Mytho, the real Mytho, defeated the Raven and the curse was lifted... Wasn't it? Then why was she here? There was no more need for Princess Tutu, no need for a duck to be a girl, and no magical pendant to turn her into one. She felt at her neck just to be sure, but felt only bare flesh. "It happened, right? I didn't dream it?"

"Sensei told us that Mytho and Rue got married and that they left town together," Pike said, misunderstanding Ahiru's question. "No one knows where they went, but there were rumors that they moved somewhere by the sea."

"Neko-Sensei told you?" Ahiru asked, and looked hastily around. "Where is he?"

"Who?" Lilie said. "What a funny name!"

"Neko-Sensei?" Pike said right on top of her. "Who is that?"

"Ah, no," Ahiru said, looking between them and flushing with confusion and embarrassment, "never mind."

No, of course not. That story was over.

She walked in silence, pondering, not noticing the concerned looks Lilie and Pike passed each other behind her back. Did it really even happen like she thought she remembered? There were pieces of her memory that were fuzzy and it took effort to recall them. At first, she could remember clearly only the major events of the story: Tutu searching for the pieces of Mytho's heart, Mytho in danger of the raven's blood, Rue falling in love with him for his sake instead of her own, sacrificing herself to save him, Tutu restoring the last piece of the Prince's heart, and then the ravens everywhere, all over town. And Fakir…writing. Mytho's story. Was there more to it? After the story? There seemed to be something more, something that was important to her story, to Ahiru's story. Maybe… Maybe…

"Fakir," she said aloud suddenly, lifting her head up to look at her friends. "Where is he? Is he here? I want to seen him."

Pike and Lilie both stopped, turning to look first at each other and then at her.

"Is Fakir here?" Pike said. "You don't know? He was the one who told us you had come back, that we should wake you up this morning... I thought you and he…"

"Are you in love with Fakir! Is he your boyfriend?" Lilie demanded, her eyes wide and glowing as she interrupted with a half-excited, half-dismayed squeal. "Have you been writing letters to each other? Did you run away together? Is it a secret affair?" Pike glared at her.

"Ah, hm, Fakir and I…" Ahiru stuttered. She felt her cheeks warming under the hot stares of her two friends. She tried to remember her time spent with Fakir, but it wasn't the main part of the story; she had difficulty remembering anything that hadn't progressed Mytho's tale. There was the investigation in the library, and meeting Rachel, and Aotoa and the oak tree, and Fakir agreeing to finish the story. There were pieces missing, but even so, there wasn't anything like what Pike and Lilie seemed to think. She knew Fakir was a good person, but... "We're not really…" she said, waving her hands defensively. "I don't think it's…"

"It would be terrible, just terrible, if you were!" Lillie cried out in distress. "You're so bright and full of hope and idealistic and transparent! He's so practical and dark and moody." She demonstrated the latter by making faces that frightened Ahiru.

"Besides," Pike chimed in, sounding almost angry with Ahiru—or maybe Lilie—for even considering it. "Fakir is sensible. He thinks a lot. He is always thinking. And he's so mysterious."

"My poor Ahiru!" Lilie exclaimed, stroking Ahiru's hair as if she were a pet. "Don't you see? It is a hopeless mismatch! You are not sensible and you are utterly transparent. You are always thinking when you are not supposed to, but never about the right things! And though you are cute, you are not pretty. You will never be a ballerina. You shouldn't go for what you cannot hope to reach! You just need to concentrate on keeping from bumping your head like you did today in class."

"That was your fault," Pike commented. "You pushed her."

"I did not!"

"Hey."

They all three froze, turning as one at the sound of Fakir's voice cut through Lilie's piping soprano from just inches behind them. A chunk of lead dropped into Ahiru's stomach. She turned her gaze around and up with every nerve jittering.

Fakir stood tall and slender on the lawn, a small stack of books tucked under one arm and his dark eyes staring placidly down at them. Ahiru choked under his gaze, not because it unsettled her, but with embarrassment at having been caught gossiping about him. She turned to Lilie and Pike to support her, to explain that it was really about her unsuitableness more than it was about him, but they had already fled, dashing over the lawn in a pair, leaping over one of the hedges and no doubt crouching down behind them to spy.

"Fakir," she began, "um…"and floundered.

Fakir face was bluff and impassive, all sharp emotions and sharp angles, like staring at a rock wall. Even so, Ahiru felt comforted seeing him, this person who had been so helpful to her even when he was cold and held himself protected and aloof generally. Even so, she had seen him angry, and depressed, tired, even scared. Maybe it was because she was foolish, because she somehow didn't notice or didn't react appropriately when others were trying to put up walls, but she had never felt successfully pushed away from Fakir; she could always talk to him, though maybe she just lacked the appropriate inhibitions, or was too honest... She also thought she understood him some, could make sense of his thoughts and feelings, but then again, maybe that was just because she had worn a piece of Mytho's heart then, the piece that allowed her to understand and empathize with the feelings of others…

Right now there was something strange in Fakir's expression, something she had never seen there before and couldn't quite identify. It was almost like he was worried, looking her over as if checking for injuries, and yet the flat expressions on his face made it seem as if he was completely unconcerned about whatever he might find. And then his eyes… full of something, something like anxiety and hope and disbelief all bound together, feelings he was trying to conceal from view and mask with coldness. Perhaps the only reason she could see it was because she felt it too, but she wasn't sure _why_ she felt that way, or why he did.

_My memory…_

Her heart beat violently in her chest. Just looking at Fakir caused something she had been holding up to start to crumble down. Why couldn't she remember the recent past? What was missing? Something important. Something dreadful. She couldn't remember. She didn't even know who she was!

"Fakir…" she said, her worry leaping out of her mouth as tears sprang to her eyes, a blurring shimmer obscuring her vision on the surface, and the corners of her mouth trembling before she could stop them. She had lost something precious, something invaluable, and she wasn't certain at all how she had lost it. Panic swelled up inside her like a wave threatening to drown her as she tried frantically to dissemble. Instinctively, she reached out for Fakir's arm.

He pulled stiffly away, turning just slightly so that the contact was never made and Ahiru pitched forward on her own. She had to wave her arms and wobble on one foot to catch her balance, flushing again because of her clumsiness, wondering how many times her face was going to match the color of her hair today.

"Not here," Fakir said under his breath, looking over her head and not seeming to notice the terror in her eyes. "Come on."

He turned and began walking away from the public scene, and she fell into step, first behind him and then running forward a few steps to catch up, grateful at least that she would not be expected to explain herself in the moment. She was never good at that. Understanding and explanations either came with intense, immediate feelings or after a lot of careful thought for Ahiru; on-the-spot rationalization or logic was not her strong suit. In some ways, it was her saving grace, in other ways a failing. At the very least, trying to keep in step with Fakir's long strides distracted her long enough to allow her to compose herself.

Fakir looked over at her as they walked, staring just down his shoulder at where she looked straight ahead from beside him. He seemed to sneak glances as if confirming to himself that she was really there, and though he maintained a presence of coldness, there was something about the way his body opened to accept her walking beside him that made her wonder about his thoughts and feelings. He seemed…pleased.

He led her across central campus to the outskirts of the academy where an outer stone wall enclosed part of a garden. The pathway to the wall was clean cobblestone, leafy plants and flowerbeds lining either side of a slightly curving path. At one point, the wall made a sharp turn into a little nook just beyond the flowers and partially hidden from view. At the foot of this section of the wall, a grassy knoll rose halfway up the stone, leveling out at the top in a place perfect for a picnic. It was to this piece of grass, up high but secluded, that Fakir led her.

Ahiru began to feel nervous and impulsive just being in the same vicinity as Fakir and flowers. By the time they had climbed up halfway up the grass, Ahiru noticed that there were no voices around, and that even the school bell sounded faint and far away. They were alone.

Fakir grabbed her hand.

She yelped in surprise, surprised by how callous his fingers felt against her skin and firm his grip was, but all he did was turn her toward him and put his hands on her shoulders, studying her intently. "You look different," he said.

Quivering with confusion and unanswered questions, she shrugged her shoulders in an effort to remove his hands, but he held her securely. She couldn't think of anything to say, not about how she looked or what she thought or anything else.

"You look…" he paused, as if searching for the right description. She glared at him, daring him to make a comment. "You look a little more like Tutu." His eyes bounced from the top of her head to her face to the shape of her legs to her chest, where his gaze lingered, perhaps unconsciously. She made a sound in her throat and pulled away, blushing like mad, and was only slightly mollified when she looked up to see that he seemed just as embarrassed. "Sorry," he coughed, looking down to hide the pink stain in his cheeks. "I just didn't expect you to look different."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she stood in silence on the grass, carefully averting her face from his.

Fakir coughed. "Hey, it's not like you have that much to be touchy about."

"It's not that!" she retorted, and her hands fell at her sides in clenched fists. "I just don't understand what's going on. Why am I here?"

He blinked, raising his head to look at her. His expression was so surprising, that her anger melted in an instant. Her uncertainty rushed in to replace it.

"I'm a duck," she said, and heard the small, plaintive suggestion of a quack in her voice. "I know I'm a duck, but…. I still sound like a duck. I still _dance_ like a duck. I…" She felt frantically at her throat, looking for the pendant that once transformed her into the girl Ahiru, into Princess Tutu… But she knew she had given it back to Mytho. Her throat was still bare. There was nothing anywhere on her person that was strange or mystical. She looked up into the face of the man who had told her to go back to being herself, and she knew he saw the suggestion of tears by the shocked widening of his eyes. "How did this happen?" She tugged at the neckline of her dress for something to hold on to, the spot where the pendant would have been but wasn't. What did it mean? "Everyone was happy, right? We agreed, right? So why did this happen? Why am I a girl?" Thinking of the possibilities, so many wild and unfamiliar emotions raged through her that she sank to her knees, grateful for the closeness to the ground. "Fakir?"

Fakir's mouth had parted in astonishment. He stared down at her as if trying to take her apart with his eyes, to look in at her unprotected heart and mind and make sense of the riddle that he seemed to see before him. "Ahiru…"

She turned her head to look at him, tears coming to her eyes, though she wasn't sure why. The frustration. The confusion. She didn't know who she was or why this was happening. Where were all these complex emotions coming from? Being a duck for so long—in her heart always a duck—and now, seeing Fakir, all these emotions were cascading on top of each other, stacking up like bricks in a masonry, and not knowing how to build anything with them…

She babbled, trying to trace back her memories, trying to understand. It was scary. She was frightened. "_You_ said 'let's return to our true selves' and I returned the last piece of Mytho's heart." They had danced together, her and Fakir, under the water, in the lake of despair… She remembered that now: The feeling of safeness, and strength, and surety; his steadying conviction that it would be better to go back to being her true self. "And Mytho destroyed the Raven, and saved Rue, and I returned to being a duck, and you..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Before this morning all I could remember was being a duck, and now I don't know. What _am_ I? What is my true self? Fakir…"

He knelt down beside her and put his hands on her shoulders again, gently this time, steadying her, comforting her. "Calm down. You're Ahiru. You're Ahiru, right? You remember who I am. You remember Mytho, and Rue. You remember Tutu?" She nodded, and grabbed onto his arm, partially hiding her face in his sleeve and closing her eyes to nothing but darkness and the sound of his voice.

"Did you write this?" she mumbled.

She felt his hand hover on the back of her head, just short of comforting her. "Does it upset you?" There was something his tone, carefully hidden, but she couldn't quite make sense of it. "Yes, I wrote it. I thought… Does it upset you?"

"I…" Was she upset? "Am I a duck or a girl?" She wasn't sure if it was a stupid question or why it upset her so much that she didn't know. Did she want it to be one way or the other? If she had to choose, which would she pick? It seemed like an important question, and strange that she had never thought about it before now. She also didn't know why she thought he could tell her the answer.

Fakir's hand finally came down to touch her hair, pushing back the strands from her face that had come loose and then adjusting her so that she had to pull away enough so that he could see her face. His hand on her cheek sent a jolt through her body that made her stiffen with awkwardness; she looked everywhere but at his face. He withdrew his hand. "Does it upset you to be a girl?"

She made a distressed sound and shook her head violently, unable to speak through the tumultuous upheaval in her chest. It wasn't that she was in the shape of a girl; it was the uncertainty of not knowing her true place, of not having any clear memory of where she had been or where she belonged. The look on Fakir's face was changing quickly from pain in response to her distress to anguish that he had caused her to suffer.

"I just don't understand," she cried, and allowed a few frightened, distraught tears to leak from the corners of her eyes. "Why did you write this? Why did you bring me back?"

He looked as if she had hit his face with a hammer, all of his features crunching together at once, and pulled swiftly away from her.

"You don't know why you are back," he said in disbelief. He looked over her head, beyond her at something she couldn't see. "Did I imagine it?" he muttered to himself. "Is it possible that I…" He brought a hand to his face and looked at her sidewise, between his fingers. After a moment he brought it down again and turned his head to look at her. "You really don't know why?"

She shook her head.

He couldn't seem to make eye contact with her. He rose from the grass and clenched his fists. His hands were shaking. "I'm a fool."

"Fakir," she said, and it came out a desperate, imploring choke, begging him to explain it to her, to make sense of it for her. "Fakir, just tell me why…"

He shook his head, striding down the hill away from her, not looking back. "I thought I understood what you wanted, but now I need to think," he said briskly, as if speaking to her now for too long was too difficult. "We'll talk later."

The tears dried on her face. What she wanted? She hadn't meant to hurt or offend him. It seemed that there was something going on that she didn't understand, some reason that she had been brought back as a girl, and her not understanding seemed to be what was upsetting Fakir. She felt lost, confused. She didn't want him to abandon her! He was the only one who understood her, who shared the same memories of what happened in this town, who knew who she truly was.

But who was she?

"Fakir," she cried out, somewhat angrily, somewhat desperately, but the sound was feeble, weakened by her lack of resolve.

He didn't look back, and she wasn't sure he even heard; the cry dropped so quietly from her lips that she herself almost didn't understand it. With each step he took, he drew farther away, and his strides seemed to lengthen across the lawn, carrying him quickly beyond her sight.

"Quack."

It was a subtle sound, a little cry of distress that just slipped from her mouth when she didn't know what else to do, when it seemed easier to suppress all the complex emotions that were part of being a girl and sink back into a simple frame of mind, uttering a sound that was unhappiness, anger, and sadness all at once, without any differentiation at all.

The air shimmered, her world view all awash in a golden light, and before she knew it, she was sunk in darkness, her small shape lost under a pile of clothes that would fit the awkward, but suddenly blossoming figure of a girl, but never a simple duck.

* * *

TBC

Yes, this story is going to be Ahiru x Fakir (eventually) and any questions about how they are acting in this chapter will be answered as the plot is revealed. I'm not sure how this story is going to go over, though. Considering that the fan base is small and spread out, I'm not sure if anyone will even hear about this story, so if you read it and would like to see the story continued, please review and consider telling a friend. Thank you very much! Also, please visit my Princess Tutu website

Ahiru: Mo… Why have I forgotten so many things? Am I going to recover my memory? I'm having another identity crisis!

Zapenstap: Next time, Fakir will explain what has happened!

Fakir: …


End file.
